Directive Answers Quora: “What’s the best way for a B2B business to build links for SEO?” [Video]

If you’re looking for the best ways to build links as a B2B business, I have three for you that I would recommend.

Partner Links

The first one is going to be the easiest one, and if you go to your website right now for your B2B business, scroll to the very bottom.

Do you have any logos or links to partners that you work with, whether it’s in your space or another, different vertical, whether it’s technology partner, software partners?

Are there people that you work so closely with that you value them and you give them a backlink to their website? If so, do they repay the favor?

Click on that link, see if they have a partnerships area. Is it in their footer? Is it on their blog somewhere? If so, and you’re not listed, well, I’d probably reach out.

You should have a partnership with that person already. You might have a contact you can reach out to. That’s one of the easiest ways to do it right away. It also helps build some authority, because those should be people who are relevant in your space and might even drive some relevant traffic.

Scholarships and Sponsorships

The second one I’d recommend takes a little bit more effort but can really pay off, and that would be around scholarships and sponsorships.

On the sponsorship side, we’re talking about having local meetups, local events — things that people in your area can come together, events that you can host, that you can be a part of — that help drive awareness to either your cause, your products, your services. Ultimately, from a link perspective, events that allow you to have a backlink that’s relevant for people to come and visit. Sites like Eventbrite and others will allow you to put in a backlink while also, you know, show off exactly what kind of event.

On the scholarship side, you can do a great number of things on the scholarship front. You can build scholarships for students — high school, college, anything like that, going to potential college — that needs to either write an essay about something that you want them to write about, a topic that’s relevant. You could even turn that in blog content yourself.

Once you do that, once you build that scholarship campaign, it just takes a pretty simple email outreach to send to .edu websites across the country to add to other scholarship pages. Most schools have scholarship pages. You get those backlinks, those are really high value for you as well and really show up well.

Guest Posting

The last one, most importantly I would say, is guest posting.

Guest posting is a pretty vital piece of SEO. For B2B to build links, if you want to do it in a very comprehensive and organic way, doing so via guest posting will make a big difference.

What we’re talking about is looking at the landscape and seeing where your voice could really be helpful, whether that’s in your industry and letting people know some insight or thought leadership you have or a relevant industry that may benefit from something that you do or you offer that they never thought of before.

Making that personal outreach via email, letting them know that you would love to write a piece for free for their readers is pretty awesome. Sometimes you’re going to get a lot of no’s, you’re going to get some vacation responders, and that’s okay. If you keep up the cadences, you keep tweaking it, you keep finding that perfect pitch, you’re going to find people who would love to hear your message, who would love to post your content for free, and would love to give you your backlink.

From there, you can start controlling that backlink, you control that anchor text, that messaging, but really, guest posting helps you develop relationships in your industry and others. It helps drive relevant traffic back to your site and helps establish you as a thought leader, which really is a great benefit from just getting that backlink.

Thank you so much for watching! If you enjoyed this video and would like to see more, be sure to subscribe! If you have a Quora question you would like us to answer about SEO, PPC, or content marketing, go ahead and leave it in the comments below and we’ll answer it next time! Thank you and have a great day!

Jesse Seilhan is the Director of Accounts at Directive, a leading B2B and enterprise search marketing agency, headquartered in Irvine, California. He wakes up every day to help his team grow, his clients succeed, and be home in time for dinner. Since joining the team in 2017, he has helped Directive expand, define, and perfect the role of an account manager at a digital agency, which now boasts a team of over a dozen account managers that help achieve growth and sustainability for nearly 100 clients.